FUCKUPS ROUNDUP

So, maybe I was putting the cart before the horse with this whole blog about baking things. Maybe it would have been helpful for me to learn how to bake first. While I've had some moderate successes and shot-in-the-dark achievements in nomming, I've had far more fuck-ups than I can count go down at NOM NOM NOM HQ. So, for your consideration, here are some baked goods that time and common sense forgot:




1. Strawberry Rhubarb Peach Cobbler.

My little sister's birthday went down in recent weeks, and in preparation for the corresponding family din, I asked her if she had a special request birthday cake flava which I would make for her. The answer was a resounding "Cobbler! Any kind!" So I was pumped. Cobbler is easy and delish when ripe and beautiful fruit abounds, and while April is still a pretty desolate month on the produce front in New York, I was cautiously optimistic. When I found inexplicably cheap and nice-looking rhubarb at my local Citarella, the deal was was sealed. Thinly sliced with equally awesome strawberries and frozen, organic sliced peaches, things were shaping up pretty nicely. Then it all took a turn for the crappy.

There are two schools of thought on cobbler: some folks cook their fruit mixture on the stove with sugar, spices, water, cornstarch and (depending on the fruit) a squirt of lemon juice, then dump it in a pan, add the topping, and bake. Other folks just toss their fruit with sugar, cornstarch, spices and lemon, slap the crust/topping on, and bake it like that. Although I'm usually a pre-oven cooker, I decided to try something new and just bake it all together. I was loosely following a few different recipes, and apparently my end product was a synthesis of everything you shouldn't do. I like cobbler topping to be basically a sweet biscuit, and so I threw together just that. I tasted my fruit mixture and it was badass. I tasted my biscuit topping dough - also badass. However, I don't know what happened, but let me tell you it was less than badass. Basically, the fruit cooked beautifully, and the topping browned and seemed great, plus everything smelled great, and I find that with baking the nose knows! So, I took it out of the oven and served it up for the fam. The taste was ok, but the fruit needed a little more sugar and spice and the topping, while it baked through, had somehow dissolved throughout the cobbler in an ugly and unappetizing way. Fuuuuck! Mediocre taste, ugly as hell. Bummer.




2. Popovers.

How sad is this? Let me set the scene for you: a sexy, talented young vegan baker chances upon a recipe for vegan popovers. The vegan baker sexily grew up in Connecticut and has many fond memories of this egg-y, buttery, flaky New England version of Yorkshire Pudding. Holy hell, thinks the vegan baker, I need these in my tummeh! The recipe calls for black salt, which for some reason is pink and which I promptly renamed Fart Salt. I did so because black salt has a very high sulfur content and is prized by egg-free bakers for the eggy taste it imparts on all that it touches. But it smells like a fucking jar of farts. I made the BF smell it and he was like, what the hell dude, why did you make me smell that, what's wrong with you? Anywho, I was stoked and confident that this assemblage of vegan exotics (including blended firm tofu and vital wheat gluten) were going to yield delicious popover awesomeness. But you know what happened instead? I LEFT OUT THE FUCKING TABLESPOON OF BAKING POWDER needed to make the popovers actually pop over. This was like Baking 101 idiocy: read your fucking recipe! Don't leave shit out! And how could I forget my friend Baking Powder, who's always been there for me to make shit rise and be delicious? Plus the taste was totes off. Not buttery at all, and totally, ironically, needed more salt. Instead of popover goodness, it was like a soggy, tofu-y hockey puck wrapped in a thin layer of flaky bread. Boo me!



3. The Chocolate Chop Cookies That Weren't.

This was just pitiful. Before I discovered the magical PMS cure that is peanut butter chocolate chunk cookies, this was my go-to menstruation helper. So one evening, after a rare long day at the old office, I swung by a bourgie, overpriced Columbia student deli and quickly grabbed some chocolate chips for this purpose. I typically read labels carefully, but I was tie-tie and saw a familiar brand name - Ghiardelli - and was like, oh, those shits are vegan, cool, and was on my way. EXCEPT THEY WEREN'T. This detail, however, was completely lost on me until I had already painstakingly assembled the entire recipe, and just needed to fold in my lil' chippers. Imagine my disappointment when there was no menstruation cure in sight. This was not awesome. In an attempt to not waste food, I froze the dough, and saved the chips as a snack for the sugar-loving, non-vegan BF, but the dough eventually wound up in the garbage. A sad day in baking indeed.

Not pictured/discussed here are: maple walnut scones, millet-currant soda bread, and three separate stabs at converting a Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World cupcake recipe into a layer cake. While all signs point to "hang up your apron," I vow to keep on nomming, against all odds, and even in the face of adversity and my own dumbass tendencies. Stay tuned!